1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an improved data processing system and, in particular, to a method and system for a specific scientific application of database processing.
2. Description of Related Art
As businesses become more productive and profit margins seem to be reduced, it is important for businesses to make productive use of all assets. Businesses have tried to increase the value of information assets by spending more money on information technology that allow people to generate knowledge from the information surrounding a business.
In oil and mining businesses, geologists constantly desire a better understanding of the geology of a region. Information technology expenditures have enabled spatial analysis to be used to visualize the large amounts of data collected using digital instruments and stored in various databases. For example, remote measurements of gravity, magnetics, and various spectra retrieved from these databases may be placed into three-dimensional models in which geologists may view the relative positions of various geologic features. In a similar manner, ground-based measurements of seismic and well-logging data may also be spatially analyzed.
To gather more information or to confirm the predictions of spatial models created from other information, geologists also gather physical samples of rocks, soil, water, pore space liquids, and plants and analyze them for their chemical properties. These samples may also be analyzed for physical properties using laboratory instruments, and the data output from these instruments may be digitally stored as representations of these properties in various databases. Other information associated with a sample, such as the location at which the sample was collected, the person who collected the sample, any instruments used to collect the sample, and various conditions under which the sample was collected may be stored in another database.
Generally, the results of these analyses are presented to a human expert who attempts to mentally correlate the multiple analyses with geologic maps and remotely sensed data such that the value of a property may be assessed. In addition to the difficulty of such correlation, the information concerning the physical samples may be stored in multiple databases. In an attempt to help the human expert, the sample information may be processed using statistical analysis to discover trends in the sample data.
Other relationships between the geologic data and the remotely sensed data and the sample data could be discovered if the proper methodologies could be applied that relied less on the expertise of the expert and more on the discovery of hidden relationships in the data. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method and system for data analysis that discovers these relationships in the data between geological samples collected in the field and other data gathered during geophysical and geochemical surveying or remote sensing of the region from which the samples were collected.
A method and system for ascertaining relationships between collected geological samples and remotely sensed geological data within a region is provided. The locations of physical samples and the locations of data points associated with remotely sensed data are identified and stored. The locations within the region are determined using a position identifying system, such as the global positioning system. The collected physical samples are analyzed to obtain data values for physical and chemical properties of the collected samples. Data mining algorithms are used to generate input data for spatial analysis. Data mining algorithms are used to delineate hidden relationships between attributes within the data from all sources as a precursor to looking for a set of spatial relationships of that data to mineral deposits. The locations of the physical samples within the region are associated with the locations of the remotely sensed data to form a set of spatial relationships.